


Five Times Herc Did Something Nice for Stacker and one Time Stacker Did Something Nice for Herc (different ways to say "I love you")

by raleighpuppy



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: 5 Times, 5 Times Plus 1, Cute, Fluff, M/M, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raleighpuppy/pseuds/raleighpuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 + 1<br/>Five different times Herc did something nice for Stacker and one major time Stacker returned the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Herc Did Something Nice for Stacker and one Time Stacker Did Something Nice for Herc (different ways to say "I love you")

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haveyouseenmyshoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haveyouseenmyshoe/gifts).



> This is kind of a thank you fic to Pacific Rim as a whole. I wanted to get it up for the movie's second birthday, but I'm a bit late. So thank you all for being really nice. I've met some swell people through pacrim and this fic is specifically for haveyouseenmyshoe . Thanks Lin! And thank you everyone!

1.

The bar's loud and Stacker's head is swimming and he doesn't necessarily want to be there, but Tamsin dragged him out because it's the first time since the Academy that this many mark 1 pilots from different Shatterdomes have been able to get together and that deserves celebrating. So he searches for someone to talk to, someone who won't be too loud or overbearing and will understand his desire to leave. His gaze falls upon Herc, sitting next to his younger brother Scott with a look on his face that screams _kill me._  Perfect.

They'd met in Afghanistan years before the K War was an idea anyone would take remotely seriously and talked all throughout the Academy. Hell, they'd been texting just earlier that day.

"Hey, Herc," he greets as he sits next to the grumpy ginger.

Herc's face lights up, that somber expression gone, and Scott snorts into his drink. "Hey, Stacks. What brings you here?"

"Tam wants me to socialize," he answers.

"So's Scott, so that's why 'm here."

A few beers later and the duo is a lot more relaxed, slumped over in their seats and leaning against each other. Stacker sighs into his drink.

"'s wrong?" Herc asks.

"There are two teams missing," he answers. "They're dead."

"Yeah." His voice wavers a little, but he pulls himself together quickly; he pulls himself together a lot. "But it was their choice an' I know that sounds bad, but they enlisted an' they saved a damn lot of people doin' it too. I mean, 's okay to be sad, but I knew 'em too and they're not the sad types, yeah?"

He nods. "Yeah."

When he wakes up in his bunk-- he doesn't remember walking back, he doesn't remember much after talking to Herc-- Stacker's head is throbbing, but someone let him a cup of water and some Advil on the little drawer next to the bed. And there's a note:

_Sorry if you're hungover. If it helps, I'm in bad shape too. Nice talking to you though. -Herc_

2.

It's a small occasion, his birthday. He's never done too much for it growing up and there's really no need to celebrate it now, though he internally celebrates the day a little as it means he's survived another year without combat or cancer taking him.

The Hansens just so happen to be at the Icebox for a couple weeks, working on administering tests to the students at the Academy. The students were awe-struck by all the mark 1 pilots around.

Scott sighs, hands on his hip. "Herc, what the fuck is this?"

"'s a cake," his older brother answers. "I see that, but _why?_ " he asks. "Dude, you can't fuckin' bake."

Herc crosses his arms across his chest, but it's not threatening when he's covered in flour and there's icing all over his hands.

"Well, I can try."

Scott reads the words messily scrawled in icing across the cake. "Happy birthday."

"'s fer Stacker," he explains. "'s his birthday, so I thought-"

Scott whistles. "You've got it bad."

Herc's face goes a bright bright red and Scott laughs so hard there are tears in his eyes.

"Scott," he whines. "Stop."

"Aw." Scott reaches over and ruffles his hair. "Poor Herc's got it so bad."

"'s hard to have it bad fer someone yer already datin'," he grumbles.

"Holy fuck, really?" He whistles. "Go go! Take yer lame cake and go!"

Stacker looks up from his book-- he'd had some free time-- and towards the door, a bit confused about who would have the decency to knock since most people simply throw the door open and waltz in whenever. He closes his book, slightly frowning.

"Come in!" he calls.

Herc pushes the door open with one flour-covered hand and he holds a misshapen lumpy cake with a shoddy frosting job in the other, and he's still wearing the flour and frosting covered apron. There's a smudge of frosting on his face too.

The cake's alright, really, it's at least not the worst cake Stacker's ever had. It's kind of lumpy and dry.

"It's great!" he says and Herc laughs.

"Nah, it's shit. I can't bake."

"No, really, it's great. I love it."

3.

"Fucking hell," Stacker breathes as yet another CD turns out to be marred with scratches to the point of not playing and Herc sighs, handing him the last of the CDs in the PPDC-issues vehicle.

The final CD, their last hope, doesn't work.

"Are you sure there's no AUX cable?" Stacker asks again for what feels like the millionth time.

"Yes," Herc answers. "'s not here."

"You ready for a musicless twelve hour drive?" he asks and Herc groans.

"What about radio?"

"Antenna's broken."

"Oh my god."

And neither one had realized how much fun music is, especially on long drives, how fun it is to sing off key, how important background noise is, until they had to drive twelve hellish hours in a PPDC vehicle with no music at all. For a while, they tried to sing from memory, but that lasted about halfway into some old Led Zeppelin song they both knew half the wrong lyrics to.

A week later, Stacker finds a CD lying on his bunk and he frowns. He doesn't remember leaving a CD there and Tamsin would have told him if it were her, so he picks it up to see it doesn't have a cover. It's in a beat up case and there's a post-it note on the disc itself.

_Sorry about the ride. Here's for next time! - Herc_

He can't help but laughing.

4.

Stacker grumbles as he opens his eyes, awoken by the lack of heat and mumbling next to him, meaning Herc is gone. They'd had quite a bit to drink the night before, which is why Stacker's so surprised he's gone. Even on a morning after they hadn't spent the night drinking, he's reluctant to leave the bed.

What he doesn't expect is to see Herc sitting on the ground in the middle of the floor, humming to himself, but he can't tell exactly what he's doing, as he can only see his back.

His gaze wanders to the clock to see it's only 5:00, which means, he's only been asleep for two hours. Fuck.

"Herc," he mumbles. His words are heavy, but not the hungover kind; they're the still drunk kind. "What're you doing? It's cold. Come back to bed."

Herc's chipper, too chipper to be hungover, so he's stuck in that weird still drunk timeframe too.

"'m busy," the ginger replies. "Gotta finish this first."

"What're you doing?"

"Organizin'."

He can't find anything for the next week, his clothes are in all the wrong places and all mixed up, he's even late for a meeting with the UN because he can't find his dress blues anywhere, but he can't bring himself to put any of it back.

5.

Stacker grumbles, flipping through various papers and folders, at his desk. He's lost track of time; last he saw it was approaching midnight and he wouldn't be surprised if it was now 2:00 AM. Then there's a knock at the door and he doesn't know who would be awake at this hour except Tendo or Newt or Hermann and none of them knock like that; it's too firm.

"Come in," he calls.

Herc pokes his head into the room in a manner that reminds him of the awful birthday cake incident, but it's not a cake he carries this time; it's a sandwich. He looks proud and-- oh god, Stacker realizes that means he made this sandwich and he's almost certain you can't fuck up a sandwich too badly, but Herc's talented.

"You missed dinner," his second-in-command says as he sets the sandwich on the desk, and then sits down across from him. "Thought you could use this."

"What poison did you put in it this time?"

"It's just a turkey sandwich. There's lettuce and tomatoes and some cheese in it too, but it's a completely fine sandwich," he responds. "If I wanted to kill you, I could've a long time ago."

He laughs and takes the sandwich. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Herc glances at the calendar and feels a bit panicked at the date, how close it is to the end of January, when their run on the Breach is planned for. It's a suicide mission, he knows it, and he doesn't want to go out any other way, but Stacker _can't_  and that's just as bad, he thinks, as his own heroism, which is really a way to mask a lifetime that led up to suicidal tendencies.

"Herc."

He blinks, this thoughts interrupted. "Hm?"

"Don't worry about me. You do that enough."

"But you won't get to--"

"I've done all I can and that's enough."

"Love you, Stacks."

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he wakes up with a blanket strewn across him and he immediately knows who it's from.

+1 "

Hey, Stacker," Tendo says. "Me, Rals, and Mako are going out for dinner later. You know, celebrate the not end of the world and everything. Wanna come?"

He looks up from his meal and considers the offer for a second, considers chickening out of his plans for later, but decides against it.

"Thanks for the offer, but I have to discuss plans with my second-in-command over dinner," he answers.

The color of Herc's face, that bright red, would suggest it's not quite a dinner, but a bit of something else too.

He's worried as he looks over his reflection in the mirror, checks time and time again to make sure he has _it_ in his pocket because this has to be perfect. He won't accept anything lesser than that, though he knows Herc will be fine either way. But he needs this to go just as planned.

It's horrible from the get-go. The car takes multiple times to start up and he nearly has a heart attack, thinking it won't start up at all. The CD, the one Herc complied for him, won't play for some reason, and then it starts to rain, so they have to run through the rain in their nice suits to get to the restaurant.

Herc's soaking up and laughing by the time they reach the door, and then he's quietly singing really off-key to whatever old rock song they're playing that doesn't fit the restaurant's atmosphere at all. Stacker finds himself humming even though he doesn't know the song.

It's all down hill from there.

Herc knocks over his glass and Stacker drops the basket of breadsticks on the ground, earning glares from the tables around them. They're too loud, too rugged for the other clientele, even in their nice suits and on they're so-called best behavior.

"Hey," Stacker says as they frown at their too-small meals. "Want to go to that bar Tam dragged is to that on time we were all here on assignment, the one with the really good music?"

Herc nods. "Yes," he answers and he sounds so relieved.

They leave, much to the relief of everyone else there, and walk in the rain, jumping in puddles, ruining their suits, laughing. Stacker nearly falls a few times and Herc doesn't help him; the asshole just laughs.

Shaky and nervous, Stacker pauses in front of the bar and turns to face the other man, suddenly very nervous, but it doesn't show. It's a big part of his job: hiding nervousness. He's quite good at it by then. Herc, on the other hand, openly shows his confusion.

Stacker grabs the object from his jacket coat, relieved it's still there; with how tonight's gone, he wouldn't be surprised if it had fallen out somewhere along the way. And he drops on to one knee, opening the little box.

"Hercules Hansen, will you marry me?"


End file.
